Pet King

When they heard the knock on the door––or the bang on the door, to be exact––little Liu Ying and her grandmother first thought that it was the wind. But after listening carefully, they realized it wasn’t, as someone was shouting at them from outside.

Grandmother asked Little Liu Ying to wait in bed while she stepped into the knee-deep water to open the door.

As soon as the door opened, deeper water flooded in immediately, nearly striking grandmother down. Luckily, a strong arm held her.

It was Liu Ying’s parents coming back in from the heavy storm. They didn’t even use an umbrella, as it was totally useless.

They didn’t say much, just one simple word: evacuate.

Grandmother didn’t ask any further. She handed them the water-proofed valuable items, then took Little Liu Ying with herself.

Her mother entered the flooded house to take the medicine. Then, she took some emergency food, such as instant noodles, etc.

“What about the clownfish?” Little Liu Ying asked, looking back at the fish tank. She was sitting on her father’s back.

After the door opened, the candles were blown out. The fish tank was pitch dark; nothing could be seen inside.

Yet nobody answered her. Nobody had time for the clownfish.

As her mother dangled the flash light, it swept through and illuminated the fish tank. Something flashed inside. Little Liu Ying felt that it was the clownfish’s eyes staring at her.

As soon as she went outside, the storm cooled her down completely. The heat that had accumulated inside her body didn’t even have time to evaporate. She was cold outside but hot inside––a terrible feeling, indeed.

The entire village was evacuating with their entire families. They were moving to higher ground––somewhere safe.

There were no more roads in the village. The river was everywhere. The water was taller than an adult’s thigh.

All kinds of things were floating in the turbid water, including dead poultry, broken branches, and even some small boats. The boatman rowed the bow while he avoided the obstacles in the water and terrified family members sat on board.

Even then, grandmother didn’t forget to lock the door, just in case any thieves came in after the flood and stole the electric appliances.

On the main road, the village leaders shouted at the top of their lungs, organizing the evacuation.

The closest army had already arrived, evacuating villagers on jet boats. Dark green silhouettes were going around everywhere.

Little Liu Ying’s father drove the fishermen’s jet boat there. She didn’t like the jet boat, as it stunk with a strong odor of dead fish and rotten shrimp. She could smell it even in the torrential rain.

“The clownfish are still at home,” she repeated after getting into the jet boat. Cold rain drops poured in as soon as she opened her mouth.

Maybe the rain was too loud, or the village leaders’ loudspeakers were too noisy, but neither parent seemed to have heard her question––or maybe they had heard, but didn’t think it was necessary to answer.

Grandmother held an umbrella in her skinny hands to protect Little Liu Ying from the storm. Yet while it rained heavily outside, it still drizzled inside the umbrella.

“It’s fine. I’ll buy you more in the future,” grandmother said, almost announcing a death sentence on the clownfish.

Her father drove the jet boat and took the whole family outside the village. Little Liu Ying stared at her house all the way out of the village until she could not see it any longer.

After the typhoon, it took a day for the flood in the village to recede, then another two to three days to clean up the branches and trash that were blocking the roads. Dead animals and poultry that were scattered everywhere were burnt and buried to prevent them from spreading diseases.

Her family and the other villagers stayed in temporary tents for a few days before they finally returned home.

Some villagers’ houses were torn down by the flood. They had to stay in the tents, waiting for the village council to build them temporary houses.

Little Liu Ying’s house was quite solid and survived the typhoon, but it left a water mark around the walls, marking the highest point that the water had reached.

The fish tank was no longer where it used to be. It laid quietly on the ground, intact.

Because the water level was higher than the tank’s center of gravity, it had caused it to float away.

Not only the fish tank, but the cabinets, tables, beds, and all of the furniture were moved around, as if there was a huge party while the owners were away.

The fish tank was still half full of water. It was very turbid, with green algae growing in it.

Little Liu Ying scooped inside of it a few times inside with a net. There were neither clownfish nor anemones in the tank––not even the dead bodies.

“They swam back into the ocean already.” Grandmother smiled with her wrinkled face. “The Dragon King has picked them up.”

Grandmother comforted her, asking her not to feel sad.

Little Liu Ying believed her, yet she still wanted cry. The clownfish were her friends, and she had saved them from death. Even the Dragon King had no right to take them away.

Somewhere deep inside her heart, she felt that the clownfish were already dead. The livestock and poultry in the village had all died in the typhoon, along with a lot of fish bigger than they were… they were all floating belly up. How could they have possibly survived?

The following days after that were very busy, as each family rebuilt their houses and tried to make up for the losses they suffered from the typhoon.

When it became less busy, grandmother offered to buy another pair of clownfish for Little Liu Ying, but she refused.

She remembered how helpless she was at that moment. She could not protect the clownfish like that. Even if she got new clownfish, they would still leave her when the next typhoon arrived.

Her parents’ fish farm suffered a great loss during the typhoon. After reconsideration, they decided to sell the fish farm and switch to other businesses.

At the end of the summer, she left the small fishing village with her parents. They rejoined relatives in a nearby city, where she attended elementary school.

Grandmother was too attached to their hometown to leave. She stayed in the fishing village in the name of keeping the ancestor’s house. After Little Liu Ying had left, she picked up Mahjong again.

During elementary school, Little Liu Ying figured out that the clownfish most likely died, indeed. The rain and the flood was fresh water, so even if they had escaped the tank last minute, they would have been unable to swim back to the ocean safely.

She went back occasionally during the winter and summer holidays, but grandmother had become somewhat distant. The short and happy days were gone forever.

Later, grandmother passed away.

After burying grandmother, her parents sold the old house in the village and said farewell to their old life. Little Liu Ying had not been back to the small fishing village ever since.

On that stormy typhoon day, grandmother sat on bed with her feet lifted and watched the flood rise. The dark fish tank, along with the faint reflection of light in the tank before they left, was imprinted deeply inside her mind like a non-fading photographic film.

After Liu Ying had finished with her story, her mood was still buried deep in the old days.

After first, people interrupted with occasional words. Qin An even mocked her while carrying the camera. But later, everybody listened to her in silence.

In the dark aquarium, looking at the clownfish covered in white film in the quarantine tank, they seemed to have traveled back 20 years, reliving Little Liu Ying’s helplessness back then. In front of a natural disaster that humans could not fight against, she was the only one that cared about her little buddies in the fish tank.